IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/iza/izawol/journl2022n503.html

Temporary migration entails benefits, but also costs, for sending and receiving countries

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph-Simon Görlach

    (Bocconi University, Italy, CEPR, and CReAM, UK, and IZA, Germany)

  • Katarina Kuske

    (Bocconi University, Italy)

Abstract

Many migrants do not stay in their host countries permanently. On average, 15% of migrants leave their host country in a given year, many of whom will return to their home countries. Temporary migration benefits sending countries through remittances, investment, and skills accumulation. Receiving countries benefit via increases in their prime-working age populations while facing fewer social security obligations. These fiscal benefits must be balanced against lower incentives to integrate and invest in host country specific skills for temporary migrants.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph-Simon Görlach & Katarina Kuske, 2022. "Temporary migration entails benefits, but also costs, for sending and receiving countries," World of Labour, LISER, pages 503-503, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:2022:n:503
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/503/pdfs/temporary-migration-entails-benefits-but-also-costs-for-sending-and-receiving-countries.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://wol.iza.org/articles/temporary-migration-entails-benefits-but-also-costs-for-sending-and-receiving-countries
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christina Gathmann & Nicolas Keller, 2018. "Access to Citizenship and the Economic Assimilation of Immigrants," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(616), pages 3141-3181, December.
    2. Murat G. Kirdar, 2012. "Estimating The Impact Of Immigrants On The Host Country Social Security System When Return Migration Is An Endogenous Choice," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(2), pages 453-486, May.
    3. Girsberger, Esther Mirjam & Méango, Romuald & Rapoport, Hillel, 2020. "Regional migration and wage inequality in the West African economic and monetary union," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 385-404.
    4. Jérôme Adda & Christian Dustmann & Joseph-Simon Görlach, 2022. "The Dynamics of Return Migration, Human Capital Accumulation, and Wage Assimilation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2841-2871.
    5. Christopher L. House & Christian Proebsting & Linda L. Tesar, 2018. "Quantifying the Benefits of Labor Mobility in a Currency Union," Working Papers 671, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    6. El-Mallakh, Nelly & Wahba, Jackline, 2021. "Upward or downward: Occupational mobility and return migration," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    7. Mobarak,Mushfiq & Sharif,Iffath Anwar & Shrestha,Maheshwor, 2020. "Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9165, The World Bank.
    8. Christian Dustmann & Hyejin Ku & Tetyana Surovtseva, 2024. "Real Exchange Rates and the Earnings of Immigrants," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(657), pages 271-294.
    9. Dustmann, Christian & Mestres, Josep, 2010. "Remittances and temporary migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 62-70, May.
    10. Tuccio, Michele & Wahba, Jackline, 2018. "Return migration and the transfer of gender norms: Evidence from the Middle East," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1006-1029.
    11. Kjetil Storesletten, 2003. "Fiscal Implications of Immigration—A Net Present Value Calculation," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(3), pages 487-506, September.
    12. Christian Dustmann & Joseph-Simon Görlach, 2016. "The Economics of Temporary Migrations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 98-136, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Parello, Carmelo Pierpaolo, 2025. "Temporary migration, indeterminacy and growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bossavie, Laurent & Görlach, Joseph-Simon & Özden, Çaglar & Wang, He, 2025. "Temporary migration for long-term investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    2. Laurent Bossavie & Çağlar Özden, 2023. "Impacts of Temporary Migration on Development in Origin Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 38(2), pages 249-294.
    3. Hannah Zillessen, 2022. "Uncertainty, Citizenship & Migrant Saving Choices," Economics Series Working Papers 1008, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    4. Hasan, Syed & Shakur, Shamim & Breunig, Robert, 2021. "Exchange rates and expenditure of households with foreign-born members: Evidence from Australia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 977-997.
    5. Christian Dustmann & Giovanni Facchini & Cora Signorotto, 2015. "Population, Migration, Ageing and Health: A Survey," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 1518, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    6. Kaufmann, Marc & Machado, Joël & Verheyden, Bertrand, 2025. "Why do migrants stay unexpectedly? Misperceptions and implications for integration," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    7. Christian Dustmann & Hyejin Ku & Tetyana Surovtseva, 2024. "Real Exchange Rates and the Earnings of Immigrants," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(657), pages 271-294.
    8. Jin, Zhangfeng & Zhang, Junsen, 2023. "Access to local citizenship and internal migration in a developing country: Evidence from a Hukou reform in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 181-215.
    9. Christian Dustmann & Uta Schoenberg, 2025. "Linking Empirical Evidence to Theory: A Framework for Understanding Immigrations Labor Market Effects," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 2522, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    10. Luigi Capoani & Cristoforo Imbesi & Francesca Rinaldi & Claudio Annibali, 2024. "Return migration, self-selection and labour market outcomes," ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2024(2), pages 191-228.
    11. Hasan, Syed & Ratna, Nazmun & Shakur, Shamim, 2019. "Exchange rate, remittances and expenditure of foreign-born households: evidence from Australia," GLO Discussion Paper Series 331, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. Christoph Albert & Joan Llull & Albrecht Glitz, 2021. "Labor Market Competition and the Assimilation of Immigrants," Working Papers 1280, Barcelona School of Economics.
    13. Matilda Kilström & Birthe Larsen & Elisabet Olme, 2023. "Temporary refugee protection and labor-market outcomes," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(4), pages 1895-1929, October.
    14. Tanika Chakraborty & Manish Pandey, 2018. "Temporary International Migration and Shocks: Analysis using panel data," Departmental Working Papers 2018-03, The University of Winnipeg, Department of Economics.
    15. Wen, Le & Paudel, Krishna P. & He, Qinying, 2023. "Temporary migration and land renting behavior," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1372-1391.
    16. Joseph-Simon Görlach, 2023. "Borrowing Constraints and the Dynamics of Return and Repeat Migration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 205-243.
    17. Regina T. Riphahn & Irakli Sauer, 2024. "Earnings Assimilation of Post-Reunification East German Migrants in West Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 11233, CESifo.
    18. Arellano-Bover, Jaime & San, Shmuel, 2023. "The Role of Firms and Job Mobility in the Assimilation of Immigrants: Former Soviet Union Jews in Israel 1990–2019," IZA Discussion Papers 16389, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Maria Balgova & Hannah Illing, 2024. "The labour market costs of job displacement by migrant status," Bank of England working papers 1099, Bank of England.
    20. Buechel, Berno & Gangl, Selina & Huber, Martin, 2023. "How residence permits affect the labor market attachment of foreign workers: Evidence from a migration lottery in Liechtenstein," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:2022:n:503. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Olga Nottmeyer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.